We had a great time but, we have to confess that it was an adventure, traveling by boat and "old" van (through good and horrible roads), seeing beautiful landscape along the river, watching birds (John counted 99 different species), seeing children galore and very dry and desert-like conditions where Alex lives. We saw very poor living conditions but no one starving; in fact the gambians are beautiful people; we saw very tall men (taller than 6 feet) and women. There is one major town, a few small cities with electricity, but mostly villages with no electricity, and wells for water. It appears that most of the country has cell phone coverage, so it will be interested to see how they evolve as they get more communication and global news. Solar chargers are starting to get into use in many of the locations.
We spent 13 days in The Gambia and traveled up river with Alex. Alex said other parents may want to travel there; thus, here was our itinerary:
- 2 days in the Kombo area
- One day going up river (car and boat)
- One night at Tendaba Lodge
- One day again going up river (boat, car and boat)
- 2 nights at Bird Safari camp
- 1 night at Chimpanzee project
- 3 nights at Alex's village
- 2 nights in Gunjur (south Gambia)
We used a travel agency called Hidden Gambia; feel free to check out their site at http://www.hiddengambia.com/ for descriptions of the tours and nice pictures of the area.However we did try to take the bush taxi from Alex's village; another one of our adventures.
Adventure story: We left the village in the dark (5:30am) and walked to the next village (bout 1 mile away), on the narrow trail, carrying our bags, to catch the gele-gele (bush taxi - a big van where you pay $1 per person for the 50 kilometers to the ferry crossing); our head-lamps and flashlights were put to use and the starry sky was beautiful. Unfortunately, the gele came full and half of the people waiting for it jumped in (we don't know how they fit). We sat on the sidewalk on their main square, and Alex said that, in the worst case, we would hire a donkey cart to take us to the main road where we could take another gele. We had no idea how we would end up traveling; some said another gele would be coming in a "little" while. About 20 minutes later, out of the blue, a very old car showed up and offered to take us for $2.5 per person... they know how to deal with tourists. We believe one of the locals called this guy. Well, the car made it and we got to the ferry safe and sound - another adventure.
If you want to see pictures of our trip, go to http://picasaweb.google.com/jasilvester
Instead of boring you with too many details, we will just post some highlights.
Overall impression. The Gambia is a small country with very few resources (mostly peanuts, tourism and fish); you probably know that it follows the Gambia river. It is a very colorful country, the people are extremely friendly (with a few exceptions, described below), its Atlantic coast is beautiful and the river is long and totally unused (from our perspective). The difficulty is to identify their possibility of growth; apparently most of their youth want to go to Europe or America to seek a better life. Deforestation is another big problem; they went from 85% forest to 15% in the last decade; and of course the poor farmers in village do not understand the issues. The agfo PCVs (like Alex) are doing their best to help them but it is difficult when they don't really understand it.
Highlights of our visit were the Chimpanzee Visitor Camp (described below) and Alex's village.
“Badi Mayo, the Chimpanzee Visitor Camp http://www.chimprehab.com/visitor_camp/) is located 270 Km up-river in the Gambia River National Park. It is managed by the Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Trust (CRT) - Africa's longest running and perhaps most successful project for rehabilitating chimpanzees to the wild. The project was founded by Stella Marsden whose father, Eddie Brewer, was a forestry officer and a keen conservationist. He later became the first director of the Wildlife Department in The Gambia and was responsible for establishing the Abuko Nature Reserve. For a long time completely off-limits to visitors, Stella has recently decided to offer chimp-watching trips to small groups of interested tourists, in an effort to safeguard the project's financial future. It’s a thrilling opportunity to view habituated chimps in a pristine natural environment.” We paid $150 per person to stay there for one night (full board and boat rides), on a very fancy tent perched high up at tree level on wooded platforms overlooking the river.
The area was beautiful but it was extremely hot - it seemed we were in a sauna for 5 hours until late afternoon – that was no fun. The boat ride to the island in front to see the chimps, on the other hand, was great. No one steps on the island; from the boat, we fed one of the groups that had: a big guy, the Alpha leader, many ladies with their babies and other macho types and children (so cute). They fed them bread, beans and nuts. It was fun watching them. When they came by the shore, the boat was docked at a safe distance; one of their leaders pulled a couple of sticks (thick ones) from the trees and threw them at us – to show off his strength… They were pretty big branches… They also had baboons on the island that ate the leftovers of the chimps; they sat on the trees down river since a lot of food fell in the water while being thrown (and missed).
Then the boat continued navigating on small water channels they call little Africa; very pretty. We even saw a barn owl. John took great pictures of birds along the trip.
The food was great; the tents, perched on a hill, were beautiful but very hot. Definitely it wasn't the best time of the year to travel (we knew that) but it was a great experience.
The area was beautiful but it was extremely hot - it seemed we were in a sauna for 5 hours until late afternoon – that was no fun. The boat ride to the island in front to see the chimps, on the other hand, was great. No one steps on the island; from the boat, we fed one of the groups that had: a big guy, the Alpha leader, many ladies with their babies and other macho types and children (so cute). They fed them bread, beans and nuts. It was fun watching them. When they came by the shore, the boat was docked at a safe distance; one of their leaders pulled a couple of sticks (thick ones) from the trees and threw them at us – to show off his strength… They were pretty big branches… They also had baboons on the island that ate the leftovers of the chimps; they sat on the trees down river since a lot of food fell in the water while being thrown (and missed).
Then the boat continued navigating on small water channels they call little Africa; very pretty. We even saw a barn owl. John took great pictures of birds along the trip.
The food was great; the tents, perched on a hill, were beautiful but very hot. Definitely it wasn't the best time of the year to travel (we knew that) but it was a great experience.
We will talk about the village in another post.
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